More
Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey
Tragedy
of White Injustice
1.
Read and study thoroughly the poe[m] "Tragedy of White
Injustice" and apply its sentiment and statements in
connection with the historic character and behaviour of the
white man. Know it so well as always to be able to be on guard
against any professions of the white man in his suggested
friendship for the Negro.
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The poem exposes the white man's behaviour in history and is
intended to suggest distrust of him in every phase of life.
Never allow it to get into the hands of a white man i[f]
possible.
2.
You can imp[ro]ve your English as you go along by reading
critically the books of the language; that is to say, you must
pay close attention to the construction of sentences and
paragraphs as you see them in the books you read. Imitate the
style.
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Read
with observation. Never read carelessly and recklessly.
3.
In reading books written by white authors of whatsoever kind, be
aware of the fact that they are [not] written for your
particular benefit or for the benefit of your race. They always
write from their own point of view and only in the interest of
their own race.
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Never swallow wholly what the white man writes or says without
first critically analyzing it and investigating it. The white
man's trick is to deceive other people for his own benefit and
profit.
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Always
be on your guard against him with whatsoever he does or says.
Never take chances with him. His school books in the elementary
schools, in the high schools, in the colleges and universities
are all fixed up to suit his own purposes, to put him on top and
keep him on top of other people. Don't trust him. Beware!
Beware!
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You
should study carefully the subject of ethnology. It is the
subject that causes races to know the difference between one
race and another.
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Ethnic
relationship is important as it reveals the characteristic of
one people as different from another. There is no doubt that
each race has different habits and manners of behaviour. You
must know them so as to be able to deal with them. There are
books on this subject in the library. In your reading and
searching for truth always try to get that which is particularly
helpful to the Negro. Every thought that strikes you, see
how it fits in with the Negro, and to what extent you can use it
to his benefit or in his behalf. Your entire obsession must be
to see things from the Negro's point of view, remembering
always that you are a Negro striving for Negro
Supremacy
in every department of life, so that any truth you see or any
facts you gather must be twisted to suit the Negro psychology of
things.
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The
educational system of today hides the truth as far as the
Negro is concerned. Therefore, you must searchingly scan
everything you read[,] particularly history, to see what you can
pick out for the good of the race. As for instance, you will
read that the Egyptians were a great people, the
Carthagenians, the Libyans, etc., but you will not be
told that they were black people or Negroes. You
should, therefore, go beyond the mere statement of these events
to discover the truth that will be creditable to your race. You
would, therefore, in a case like that ask where did the
Libyans get their civilization from or the Carthagenians
or the Egyptians.
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Following
that kind of an investigation you will come upon the truth that
it was all original[ly] Negro and subsequently bec[a]me
Negroid. That is to say, subsequent people were mixed
with other people's blood, who were no doubt conquered by the
Negro. As a fact, the original Egyptians were black
men and women, and so the Carthagenians and Libyans,
but in the later centuries they became mixed in blood, just as
how [now?] the blacks are being mixed in America and the
West Indies by the infusion of white blood through the
domination of the white man.
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Never
yield to any statement in history or made by any individual[,]
caring not how great, that the Negro was nobody in
history. Even if you cannot prove it always claim that the
Negro was great. Read everything you can get written by
Negroes and their ancestry, going back six thousand years.
There are statements in the Bible in the Old and
New Testaments to show that black was always an important
colour among the races of men. Abraham had company with a
black woman, even though he had his wife Sarah, by
whom he had Ishmael.
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All
the original Pharaohs were black. Tutankumen,
whose bones and body were dug up not very long ago at Luxor
in Egypt, was a black Pharaoh. The sphinx, in
Egypt which has stood through the millenniums, has black
features. It is evident that as art it was portrayed to
teach us of the greatness of men. When you are dealing with
Jews let them know that they were once your slaves in
Egypt if you have to say so. There is good ground to say
that civilization started in Africa and passed from and
through Northern Africa into Southern Europe, from
which the Greeks and Romans and the People
of Asia Minor made good copies. The swarthy colour of the
Asiatics and the brunette colour of the South
Europeans were due to the fact that the cultured and
civilized blacks of Africa mixed their blood with
them. Search all history and all literature and the Bible
and find facts to support this argument but hold to it with a
grip that will never loosen. Things that may not be true can be
made if you repeat them long and often enough, therefore, always
repeat statements that will give your race a status and an
advantage. That is how the white man has built up his
system of superiority. He is always telling you he is superior
and he has written history and literature to prove it. You must
do the same. One of the great backgrounds for your argument
which cannot be disputed is that you are older than any other
man as a race because you are black. Your argument is that in
nature everything by way of age darkens. That you are darker
than the rest of men, proves logically, that you are older than
the rest of men. Another proof of that is that even among
white people they grow darker in skin as they grow older in
age in a lifetime.
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If the one individual were to live for six thousand years he
would surely be not white. If he were born white
he would be as dark as the darkest man. Therefore,
the old argument that the black man is black
because as man he is older than the other man is
good. Use it everywhere you go to defeat the white man in
his belief that you sprung from something else. Use the argument
that the white man is white because most of the
time when the black man was great in Africa and
had succeeded in running him across the Mediterranean
into South Europe he had to hide himself in caves where
there was very little light and air. He was almost covered up
for most of the time in darkness. In natural creation the child
in the womb of the mother is almost white even though it
be a black child and it is almost born white and
doesn't change colour until it comes in contact with light and
air.
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Living
in caves for so many centuries the white man, therefore,
became colourless and the length of time always made it so that
he was born naturally white. You must interpret
anthropology to suit yourself. The thing for you to do is to
refute every pertinent statement of the white man which
tends to degrade you and to elevate him. Turn the tables on him
and search for all reasons in the world you can find to justify
it. That is how new thoughts are given out by creation. Never
yield to the statement of your inferiority.
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In reading Christian literature and accepting the
doctrine of Jesus Christ lay special claim to your
association with Jesus and the Son of God. Show
that whilst the white and yellow worlds, that is to say,
the worlds of Europe and Asia Minor persecuted and
crucified Jesus the Son of God, it was the black
race through Simon the black C[y]renian who
befriended the Son of God and took up the Cross
and bore it alongside of Him up to the heights of
Calv[a]ry. The Roman Catholics, therefore, have no
rightful claim to the Cross nor is any other professing
Christian before the Negro. The Cross is
the property of the Negro in his religion, because it was
he who bore it.
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Never admit that Jesus Christ was a white man, otherwise
he could not be the Son of God and God to redeem
all mankind. Jesus Christ had the blood of all races in
his veins, and tracing the Jewish race back to Abraham
and to Moses, from which Jesus sprang through the
line of Jesse, you will find Negro blood
everywhere, so Jesus had much of Negro blood in
him.
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Read the genealogical tree of Jesus in the Bible
and you will learn from where he sprang. It is a fact that the
white man has borrowed his civilization from other peoples. The
first civilization was the Negro's
black people. The second civilization was the brown
people
Indians, the third civilization was the yellow people,
chinese
or
mongols;
the last civilization up to today is the white man and
all civilization goes back to the black man in the
Nile Valley of Africa. In your reading, therefore, search
for all these facts. Never stop reading and never stop until you
find the proof of them.
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You must pay great attention to sociology. Get the best books on
the subject that you can and read them thoroughly. Find out the
social relationship among other races so [t]hat you may know how
to advise your people in their social behaviour. Never admit
that the Negro is more immoral than the white man but try
to prove to the contrary. Socially the white man has debauched
and debased all other races because of his dominant power. He is
responsible for more illegitimacy among races than any other
race. He has left bastard children everywhere he has been,
therefore, he is not competent to say that he is socially and
morally purer than any other race.
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The mixed population among Neg[roe]s from slavery to the
present in certain countries is due to [t]he white man's
immorality. Therefore, if you should hear anyone talking
about moral depravity of Negroes and the moral excellence
of the whites, draw the above facts to their attention.
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When through reading and research you have discovered any new
fact helpful to the dignity and prestige, character and
accomplishment of the Negro, always make a noise about
it. You should keep always with you a note book and fountain pen
or indelible pencil and make a note in that book of anything you
hear or see that you would like to remember. Keep always at home
a larger note book to which you must transfer the thought or
experience, so that it will not be lost to your memory. Once at
least every three months read over that book and as the book
becomes more voluminous with facts, read it over at least once a
year.
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By the constant reading of these facts they will be planted on
your subconscious mind and you will be able to use them without
even knowing that you are doing so. By keeping your facts
registered and your very important experiences, at the end of a
full life you may have a volume of great value such as Elbert
Hubbard's Scrap Book. Get a copy of this Scrap Book.
Ask any publisher in your town to get it for you. It contains
invaluable inspiration. Always have a thought. Make it always a
beautiful thought. The world is attracted by beauty either in
art or in expression.
Therefore, try to read, think and speak beautiful things.
Marcus Garvey
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